Thursday, March 31, 2011

Under no scenario, no matter how how the numbers are twisted, pounded, and contorted, can this one-in-five figure (or is it one-in-three? Or one-in-four? Or one-in-six? Or one-in-seven? Or one-in-four before Thanksgiving of Freshman year -- we've seen every manifestation of this "one-in" canard) be reconciled with the alleged rate of undrerreporting these same women's groups posit.

Really, you say? That's correct. We've previously showed that, using their own (inflated) 90 percent underreporting figure (note: even RAINN says its only 60 percent) to prove beyond any question that it's not one-in-five, but more like One-in-One-Thousand-Eight-Hundred-Seventy-Seven. See here. That number was obtained using a large urban campus as a laboratory. You can do similar math for almost any college -- just find the number of reported sexual assaults for that college, figure out the number that "should" have been reported if there were no underreporting, and I promise you that the chasm between their own number of sexual assaults that should have been be reported and their "one-in-whatever" canard will be of jaw dropping, Biblical proportions.

If the "one-in-five" figure were correct, our college campuses would be more dangerous places than the Tadmor Prison in Syria, where the bloodthirsty guards butcher inmates with axes for the fun of it. And, there would be something terribly, terribly wrong with the male gender.

Since women's groups can't even mount an internally consistent argument about the prevalence of rape -- their "one-in-whatever" number and their underreporting stats produce numbers that aren't just vastly different but are in different universes -- how is it that they have any credibility at all?

The Westerville Division of Police has determined that the alleged sexual assault in Davis Hall last week was, "unfounded," or false.

Charges are being filed through the Franklin County Municipal Court on both Tenneh Senessie, 19, and Darrell Jones, 40, according to the latest press release by WPD.

Senessie of Westerville is being charged with three different offenses.

According to WPD, Senessie will be charged with making a false statement to authorities with the intent to incriminate another person, prostitution and procuring, which Sgt. Paul Scowden of the WPD said is "using an area for the act of prostitution."

Jones, of Urbana, Ohio, will be charged with solicitation of sexual activity for hire.

Detective Stacey Pentecost of the WPD said that she will not discuss details of this case until a full report has been filed.

"I don't know exactly the reason she gave for filing the report," said Lt. John Petrozzi of WPD. "They met on the Internet, and there was communication, and they made an arrangement to meet in Westerville."

According to the Ohio Revised Code, a person found guilty of falsification could face a misdemeanor of the first degree, a person found guilty of prostitution could face a misdemeanor of the third degree and a person found guilty of procuring could face a misdemeanor of the first degree.

Solicitation of a prostitute could result in a misdemeanor of the third degree.

As to whether or not Otterbein will pursue separate charges against Senessie, Vice President of Student Affairs Robert Gatti said that he cannot disclose that information because of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

"It prevents me from posting your disciplinary records on the walls of Towers Hall," Gatti said of FERPA.

According to Gatti, Otterbein will do an internal investigation to see if Senessie violated Otterbein's code of conduct.

"It's important that we get all the facts before we make an informed decision," said Gatti. "This is an unfortunate situation, and we will continue to be in communication with the student and her family."

Gatti said that the e-mail sent from Otterbein Security, which said the accusations of the sexual assault were false before the official WPD press release concluded this, was "just a miscommunication."

"As of right now, I have no comments to make," Senessie said.

Jones could not be reached for comment.

The arraignment for both Senessie and Jones is scheduled for April 5 at the Franklin County Municipal Court.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

In Terre Haute, Indiana, Charles Wallace, 29, is a family man, the proud father of three young children. But that family was taken away from him in January of last year when police arrested him on rape charges, a crime he says he never committed.

He says it was a consensual relationship with a woman who eventually lied to police and cried rape. "All I did . . . was cheat on my girlfriend, and same thing the other girl did. Instead of admitting that to her husband, she comes out with an outlandish story like this, and I get my life ruined for it".

Charles was arrested, his mugshot was splashed across local television screens. He was fired from his job. Then he spent three months in the Vigo County jail.

The Vigo County prosecutor's office and the sheriff's department investigated the case, but found no evidence to support it, so the charges were ultimately dropped.

But hold onto something when you read this next part, taken right from the news account: "Vigo County Prosecutor Terry Modesitt says they 'have to' depend on the credibility of the victim to protect that victim first and foremost, but he says often with domestic cases stories change, and charges don't hold, and sometimes that takes weeks or even months to prove. It's a lose-lose situation for police, the victim and ultimately those who are truly victims."

Read that again to make sure it sunk in: our law enforcement personnel "have to" depend on the credibility of "victims"? (He meant "accusers," but to some people they are the same thing.)

Sorry, Mr. Modesitt, but your job is to do justice, sir, not to knee-jerk believe every accusation that happens to land on your desk just because the accuser is female and the charge is rape. When you automatically believe an accuser before you even bother to evaluate the case, you automatically disbelieve the accused. In this case, your automatic disbelief led to the accused being jailed for three -- count 'em -- three months.

That's "justice" to you, sir? Seriously?

Modesitt explained: "It's frustrating to us if someone is lying cause it's a total waste of our time, of the police's time, and then the jury is skeptical because the jury remembers this story so it puts those people in jeopardy in not being able to obtain justice for the crime that was committed against them."

That comment is simply jaw-dropping. The problem with the false rape claim is that it wastes your time, sir?! You are serious, sir? YOU WEREN'T LOCKED UP IN A CELL FOR THREE MONTHS, SIR.

I'll bet you that ordeal was pretty "frustrating" for Mr. Wallace, don't you think, sir? I'll bet he felt that was "a total waste" of his time, don't you think, sir?

Or don't you even care?

After the charges were dropped, Charles Wallace was reunited with his family and given his job back. He says he's now working hard to make up for the thousands of dollars lost defending himself and for the lost time with his loved ones.

Charles had a felony record at the time of this false accusation. He thinks it's that old record that may have contributed to his quick arrest.

See, "victim blaming" is perfectly OK -- when the victim is male, and the charge against him is rape.

Flashback to opening night of Peter Shaffer's hit play "Equus" in London, 2007, when then-17-year-old Daniel Radcliffe shed his clothes to the delight of the female theater-goers. Here are excerpts from a major newspaper article, written by a woman, reporting some of the reactions of the women in the audience:

"Oh my goodness..." I squeak. "He's quite something."

"Isn't he just?" whispers the woman next to me out of the corner of her mouth.

"And surprisingly hirsute, if I might say...crikey, just look at that six-pack. And chest. And tummy...Wow! Who'd have thought it?". . . .The reason most people are here tonight and, indeed, the reason tickets are sold out for weeks to come, is the moment, halfway through the second half, when Harry (sorry, Daniel) simulates sex with an attractive blonde stable girl called Jill, played by 24-year-old Joanna Christie.. . . ."Oh my God!" whispers a man in front to his wife. "We're not - I repeat - not, bringing the girls." "Shut up!" hisses his wife. "I'm trying to watch."

So are we all. And we're all wondering the same thing. Fast forward past the applause and standing ovation to the aftershow party, and the million-dollar question is on everyone's lips.

Were actress Joanna Christie's charms too much to resist for poor Daniel? Had his body reacted in the way any 17-year-old boy's would when confronted with an attractive naked girl?

From our perch in the gods, we suspected as much, but it was important to check with those who had a better view. Graham Norton was uncharacteristically prurient. "I couldn't possibly comment. And you should be ashamed of yourself, young lady. He's little more than a boy."

Others were less equivocal, but one thing is for certain: those little round specs are a distant memory.

From what I can see, Paul Elam's A Voice for Men has amassed overwhelming evidence of prosecutorial bias against a man named Vladek Filler, who was tried in Maine and found guilty by a jury of one count of gross sexual assault and two counts of assault. After the verdict, the trial court granted Mr. Filler's motion for a new trial due to the exclusion by the trial court of certain potentially crucial evidence that would have shown a motive for his ex-wife to fabricate the claims against him, and because of improper remarks of the prosecutor in her closing argument.

Paul is featuring the case on a very special edition of A Voice for Men Radio tonight, and I know that our readers will be glued to it. Paul has amassed much information that is beyond the reported judicial decision of the Filler case, so I thought it would be appropriate for us to confine our focus to the actual decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine to explain why the Court concluded that the prosecution unfairly prejudiced Mr. Filler.

First, it is well to note the prosecution's theory of the case, as reported in the Bangor Daily News immediately after the jury verdict that found Mr. Filler guilty: "According to investigators, Filler’s wife alleged that her husband forced her to have sex against her will when he became angry. . . . . Filler’s control of his wife manifested itself in his temper and in sexual assaults, according to Kellett. . . .. 'I’m very pleased with the outcome,' Kellett said. 'It is an appropriate outcome.' . . . . Filler’s control of his wife manifested itself in his temper and in sexual assaults, according to Kellett. 'It was sexual punishment, so it was very hard for her to talk about,” the prosecutor said. 'It was punitive and angry.'" See here.

After that article was written, the trial court had misgivings about its own handling of the case and granted Mr. Filler a new trial based on the improper exclusion of evidence about the child custody dispute, and due to the improper remarks of the prosecutor in her closing argument that exploited the exclusion of that evidence by suggesting there was no child custody dispute.

On appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, the court affirmed the order granting a new trial. That decision is reported at 2010 ME 90, 3 A.3d 365 (2010). The Court wrote:

"The charges [against Vladek Filler] stemmed from allegations that Filler physically and sexually assaulted his wife on several occasions between December 2005 and April 2007. . . . . Filler's defense was premised on the theory, introduced in his opening statement, that his wife fabricated or exaggerated her allegations against him to gain an advantage in an anticipated custody case involving their minor children . . .. Filler was not allowed to question his wife on cross-examination to establish that his wife had initiated a series of legal actions to secure legal custody of the children after she had alleged the incidents of abuse that resulted in Filler's prosecution."

It is well to note that it was the prosecutor who objected to allowing Mr. Filler's lawyer to question the wife regarding the custody dispute. During the trial, the trial court erroneously agreed with the prosecution and excluded the evidence because the judge (wrongly) believed that such evidence would sidetrack the case. (In fact, the trial judge would later see the error of his order excluding the evidence because such evidence would have great probative value in impeaching the wife's credibility.)

Here is where the prosecutorial error comes in. After having improperly prevented Filler from mounting the only defense available to him by keeping evidence of the custody battle out of the case, the prosecution exploited that improper victory to put the final nail in the coffin of Vladek Filler. In her closing argument to the jury, the prosecutor said the following:

"I would ask you where the evidence is to back up his statement that he stated in both his opening and his closing that this is a marriage that was ending, this is a child custody, this was a first step in a child custody fight. Where is one piece of evidence about that? . . . . The suggestion that [Filler's wife] has made this all up just for the purpose of getting ahead in the child custody, where is the evidence of that? . . . . Custody dispute? Where is that?"

Of course the prosecutor knew "where the evidence" was to back up Mr. Vladek's defense that the claims against him were fabricated to gain the upper hand in a custody dispute: she kept it out of the trial, that's where it was. Her suggestion to the jury that there was no child custody dispute is both heinous and unpardonable. Did the jury have any choice but to convict, in light of the fact that Mr. Filler's lawyer promised evidence of a child custody dispute and failed to deliver on it?

According to the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine: "Filler objected to the State's rebuttal and moved for a mistrial. He argued, among other things, that the State had improperly encouraged the jury to use the absence of evidence regarding the marriage ending and a child custody dispute--evidence that had been excluded based on the State's objection--as a reason to reject Filler's defense."

The trial court eventually granted Filler's motion for a new trial on the basis that the prosecutor's rebuttal argument referenced the absence of evidence of a child custody dispute among the parties. The trial court also held that it should not have excluded evidence of the child custody dispute.

In affirming the grant of a new trial, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine held that the grant of the new trial was correct because "evidence of a complaining witness's motivation bears directly on the issue of credibility. . . .." The court explained: "we have recognized that '[t]he exposure of a witness' motivation in testifying is a proper and important function of the constitutionally protected right of cross-examination.'" The court cited precedent in another case that "a defendant was entitled to a new trial when the court excluded testimony regarding the alleged victim's prior threats to fabricate claims that the defendant had raped her. . . .. The evidence was erroneously excluded because it 'demonstrated a distinct manifestation of [the alleged victim's] vindictiveness' towards the defendant. . . . . . We concluded that when the victim is the State's primary witness against the defendant, 'evidence tending to impeach [the victim's] credibility ha[s] greatly enhanced probative value.'" Here, "evidence that Filler's wife had taken legal steps to gain custody of the children was relevant because it made a fact of consequence--whether she had a motive to fabricate her allegations of abuse--more probable than not. . . . . [E]vidence of the legal actions taken by Filler's wife would have supported Filler's theory that she had an ulterior motive in making the claims in the first instance. . . . . Filler's wife's credibility was central to the outcome of the case and Filler's defense necessarily rested on his impeachment of her. Thus, the probative value of her motivation for potentially fabricating the allegations of abuse was substantial. . . . .this relevant evidence would have required only a few minutes of trial time to be fully explored."

As for the prosecutorial error, here is what the court wrote: "The prosecutor's rebuttal argument . . . suggested that Filler's theory of the case should be disbelieved because there was no evidence that the marriage was ending or that his wife took any steps related to a child custody dispute: 'I would ask you where the evidence is to back up his statement that he stated in both his opening and his closing that this is a marriage that was ending . . . this was a first step in a child custody fight? Where is one piece of evidence about that?' The prosecutor's reference to 'a first step' refers directly to Filler's wife's report to the police that Filler had victimized her. The absence of even 'one piece of evidence about that' refers to a second step--an actual child custody fight or divorce proceeding. Thus, the State's rebuttal argument asked the jury to reject Filler's defense that his wife had a motive to fabricate her allegations because of the absence of any evidence that she had taken any legal steps to acquire custody of the children.

". . . . the State's rebuttal argument created a high likelihood that Filler was unfairly prejudiced. . . . . The likelihood that the jury might have been persuaded to accept the central premise of Filler's defense--that his wife had a strong motive to fabricate her claims--was greatly diminished by the State's emphasis on the absence of evidence that the marriage was ending and the parties were engaged in a child custody dispute. The court did not err in concluding that the interest of justice requires a new trial."

A prosecutor is the gatekeeper of justice whose job is not merely to convict but to do justice. That's a hefty burden to place on someone whose job performance is too often judged by his or her success in the courtroom. But do justice they must. The prosecutor here did not do justice. A prosecutor should only bring charges, as Prof. Bennett L. Gershman described it, when he or she is convinced to a moral certainty of both the defendant's factual and legal guilt. To bring charges when there is any less certainty, and then to suggest to the jury that the man on trial has no defense precisely because the prosecutor has improperly prevented him from presenting it, scarcely fulfills the prosecutor's duty to do justice. It invites miscarriages and the possible conviction of an innocent defendant.

Prosecutor Mary Kellet's actions in the Filler case were morally grotesque and warrant her discharge. In light of this case, it is questionable whether any man can get a fair trial when she is prosecuting him.

The Newberg-Dundee Police Department has dropped a sexual assault investigation involving a George Fox student, who may face charges of filing a false police report, according to the university.

A posting on the university's website says that police determined that the woman’s complaint was unfounded. The unnamed student filed a report in mid-April, saying she was attacked in her apartment on the southwest side of the campus. In her statement to police, she said someone knocked on her door about 8 p.m. and when she answered it a man wearing a ski mask forced his way in and sexually assaulted her.

When her two roommates returned about 9:30 p.m., they called security. The university sent out a campuswide email and bolstered security on the campus, located in Newberg. Local police also stepped up their patrols of the area.

“The safety of our students is our first priority,” said Brad Lau, vice president of student life. “The university responded appropriately to this report, and we will continue to take seriously any report of sexual assault or threatening behavior. We want to make sure this is a safe and supportive environment for all of our students.”

The statement said police have asked the FBI to review the case.

The student dropped out of the Christian university last year after filing the police report and has not been in contact with officials, the university statement said.

Monday, March 28, 2011

On college campuses across America, angry young feminists, in connection with the financially interested sexual grievance industry, insist that sexual assault is a massive unresolved problem despite the absence of evidence to support this conclusion. They write blatantly dishonest pieces in their college newspapers about it. They hold seminars, spearhead indoctrination sessions for men, print brochures, and hold useless "Take Back the Night" and "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes" rallies. After more than thirty years of rape reforms, both underreporting of rape and rape itself, we are told, are still rampant.

Put aside that the dishonesty of these attitudes is breathtaking. To the extent rape is a problem, in significant ways, anti-rape feminists are the authors of their own discontent.

(1) If rape victims are not "coming forward," it's because of feminist scare tactics

Feminists insist that rape victims are not coming forward because they believe that women do not receive justice, and that they are subjected to a "second rape" when they report their victimization.

Put aside that no one can say if underreporting is a serious problem because the rape milieau is so terribly politicized, it's impossible to trust the "studies" that supposedly support serious underreporting. See, J. Fennel, Punishment by Another Name: The Inherent Overreaching in Sexually Dangerous Person Commitments, 35 N.E.J. on Crim. & Civ. Con. 37, 49-51 (2009). Put aside that the head of RAINN recently explained that women are not principally failing to report rape due to a fear of being disbelieved. Put aside the fact that it's foolish to combat one form of criminality, namely rape, by ignoring another form of serious criminality, namely false rape reporting.

If rape victims are not coming forward because they believe that women do not receive justice, who is spreading this dire warning, and is it accurate?

This dire warning is being spread by politicized purveyors of misandry: anti-rape feminists and the paid sexual grievance industry. No one else is chanting it.

A blatant example, and a microcosm of this dishonesty, is found in the UK. Last year, the Stern Review, decidedly sympathetic to feminst concerns, said that it is a misrepresentation to insist that rape is not taken seriously, and that such insistence might actually put women off from reporting. The Stern Review explained the basis for its assertion: in the UK, for a long time, when discussing the success rate in prosecuting rape, the Home Office and politicians allied with anti-rape activists have cited the attrition rate for alleged rape, which is the number of convictions as a percentage of number of reported crimes. That rate is 6% or slightly less. But, the Home Office, and everyone, uses the conviction rate, the number of convictions secured against the number of persons brought to trial for that given offence, for all other crimes – murder, assault, robbery, and so on. In fact, the conviction rate for rape is 58%. Stern Review, see page 45.

The chasm between 58% and 6% represents dishonesty of Biblical proportions. The result of such dishonest advocacy has made it appear that law enforcement is terribly, and uniquely, ineffective when it comes to rape.

Importantly, the Stern Review noted that use of the attrition rate instead of the conviction rate "may well have discouraged some victims from reporting." Id.

Despite the Stern Review's well-publicized report, the prominent UK rape activist group, Women Against Rape, continues to wrongly state that "the conviction rate for rape is 5.7%." http://www.womenagainstrape.net/resources

It is only fair to question that organization's motives in light of the concerns raised by the Stern Review.

For every other crime, our criminal justice system is premised on the notion that criminal sentencing deters criminality. Generally, the more serious the harm caused by the criminal act, the more severe the sentence --except when it comes to false rape reporting.

The less we deter women who lie about rape, the more likely are women make false claims, thus reducing the integrity of every legitimate rape claim.

In false rape case after false rape case after false rape case, judges and law enforcement personnel bemoan the fact that every rape lies diminish the integrity of every legitimate rape claim. Yet, some prominent feminists have made it clear that they don't want any false rape accuser even to be charged for their crimes, much less subjected to a custodial sentence.

Lisa Longstaff of Women Against Rape has been quoted as saying the following: “Every prosecution [of false rape claims] puts women who have been raped off reporting it.” Another time, she called efforts to prosecute women for making false rape claims “a concerted witch-hunt.”

In New Zealand, when a 17-year-old New Zealand girl was arrested after falsely claiming that she was dragged off by three youths and sexually assaulted at knifepoint, Dr. Kim McGregor, director of New Zealand’s Rape Prevention Education, was quoted regarding false rape complainants: “I would recommend some form of therapeutic intervention rather than charging them.” Dr. McGregor claims that “someone needed to be ‘pretty distressed’ to make a false allegation of sexual assault,” and that “very few women made false complaints as a form of revenge.”

If women are permitted to lie about rape with impunity, what is to stop other rape liars? And what will that do to the integrity of every legitimate rape victim?

Aside from other rape victims, feminists have no concern about the effects of rape lies on those innocent women who love and depend on the men and boys destroyed by rape lies. Rape lies do not occur in a vacuum. Almost every man or boy snagged in a false rape claim has a wife, girlfriend, daughter, mother, female employees who depend on him, or female friends and relatives. When a male loved one is falsely accused, few women dismiss it as "just desserts" for an undeserved beneficiary of privilege and patriarchy. Almost uniformly they are appalled. It is for good reason that we include "women" in the subtitle of this blog -- most of the notes we receive telling us that a man or boy was falsely accused of rape are from desperate mothers suffering immensely because of the the rape lie.

Never once have I heard an anti-rape feminist express the slightest concern about those women. Never once.

(3) Their insistence on naming men accused of rape often hurts rape victims

Anonymity for men accused of rape is a controversial subject. Naming men on the basis of even far-fetched accusations is sufficient to destroy them forever. The problem of false claims when it comes to rape far outweighs the problem of false claims for any other crime, both in volume and in terms of the stigma. In contrast, anonymity for women who cry rape is taken as a given.

But naming men probably actually hurts many legitimate rape victims, and it is likely that more women would "come forward" if the men they accused were anonymous. Why is that? When a woman accuses a male acquaintance of rape and he is publicly identified, it often isn't difficult to infer who the accuser is. It is reasonable to assume that most rape victims would prefer not to have their identities revealed even by inference when they accuse an intimate acquaintance of rape. It is also reasonable to assume that the benefits accruing to women by keeping the accused anonymous would outweigh the benefits of naming men accused, despite feminists' repeated citation to a serial rapists named John Worboys.

But this problem has never been seriously explored and there is no public discourse about it because the primary intention on the part of those who insist that even factually innocent men accused of rape be named seems to be punitive, a twisted sort of "get-evenism" for the past sins of actual rapists.

(4) They make clear to rape victims that they have no civic duty to report their rapes, thus endangering other women

When bystanders watch as a woman is being gang raped, any person of good will is appalled, and we question what mentality prompts people to do nothing when someone is being hurt. In some countries, there exists a legal requirement for citizens to assist people in distress.

Yet, when it comes to rape victims, we hold them to no duty to report. Everyone appreciates that a rapist is typically a serial perpetrator, and that it is likely that most rapists will repeat their assaults on other innocent women. Yet consistent with the current philosophy to treat rape as a "different" kind crime, feminists have created a culture where it is the height of insensitivity and political incorrectness even to suggest that rape victims have a civic duty to report their rapes. Instead, they take steps to assure rape victims that there is no imperative to immediately report their rapes when they should be preaching the opposite. (Among many other things, they extend or eliminate altogether statutes of limitations, signaling that a rape victim may sit on her claim for a long time, before bothering to report it.)

But every failure to report a rape means that a rapist is at large, likely taking new victims. Is it not at all troubling that there is so little concern for these other would-be victims?

(5) They create a culture that encourages women to take reckless chances with their own safety.

We need to teach both young men and young women that the alcohol-fueled hook-up culture is a disaster for too many young people. Unfortunately, the prevailing feminist mantra is for young women to "party like the guys," without bothering to tell them about the "regret asymmetry" that separates the genders: women experience much greater after-the-fact regret than men do. Sometimes feelings of regret are translated into feelings of "being used," and sometimes feelings of "being used" are misinterpreted or purposefully misconstrued as "rape."

Asking the police, a judge, or a jury to sort out what happened in an alcohol-fueled tryst based on a "he said/she said" account can put an impossible burden on our law enforcement and judicial apparatuses. Nobody ever wins in that scenario. See here. Even true believer feminists, like prominent feminist legal scholar Aya Gruber, admit that the criminal justice system is not equipped to deal with date rape.

Yet when these irrefutable points are posited, puerile far left ideologues -- whose idea of effective argumentation is to shout "BULLSHIT!" and to cite financially interested "studies" by the sexual grievance industry -- trot out the "victim blaming" label, as if their inapt and childish incantation could somehow shame the truth.

A WOMAN with a history of making false allegations of sexual abuse, who told police that her father had raped her, has been jailed.The lying accusation nearly ruined the business career of father Phillip Marrill, Guildford Crown Court heard on Monday (February 28).

His daughter Emma, 21, from Camberley, persisted with the false allegations claiming that her father had sexually abused her from the age of 15.

It was only after six months that Emma confessed she had fabricated the allegation.

Judge Neil Stewart told her: "You have done this both previously and subsequently."

Miss Marrill, of Horshoe Crescent, Camberley, was jailed for 12 months after admitting doing an act intended to pervert the course of justice.

The judge said the sentence would have been longer but for her early plea of guilty.

Prosecutor Wendy Cottee told the court that the defendant contacted Surrey Police on June 17 2009.

"She said she had been raped by her father the previous evening at his home address," she said.

"The following day her father was arrested at his home in Staines by police and detained for interview."

The court was told that Phillip Marrill was seized at 1.30am and spend 22 hours in custody.

'Uncooperative'

Ms Cottee said that he was forced to provide intimate body samples, hand over his clothes and his home was searched.

"His wife provided an alibi for her husband saying that he had been with her at the time that the alleged rape was supposed to have taken place." she said.

But the court heard that Emma persisted with the allegations.

Ms Cottee told the court: "She said it was not the first time she had been raped.

"She said there had been several incidents since the age of 15."

The court was told that Emma claimed that she had received a phone call from her family saying that her neice and nephew would be taken into care unless she dropped the allegations against her father.

But, said Ms Cottee, police analysis of the defendant's phone records showed that the only call she had received at that time had been from her boyfriend.

Ms Cottee said that Emma became increasingly unco-operative with the police until finally on January 5 last year she told officers that she wanted to withdraw the allegations.

"She said that the rape had never happened. She was intervewed under caution and she confessed that the allegations against her father had been untrue."

Ms Cottee said that Emma confided the allegation to her boyfriend.

"She was expecting her boyfriend to have a go at her father," she said.

"Her boyfriend had called the police and she did not know how to get out of it".

The prosecutor added: "The defendant said she had not got on well with her father but she regretted that he had been arrested."

A victim impact statement from Phillip Marrill said he had found the early morning arrest and being taken away in a marked police car degrading.

Ms Cottee said "It had repercussions on his work."

She said that he was reluctant to tell his employers what had happened and had covered his absences from work due to the case by taking annual leave.

The prosecutor said that being on bail for rape had serious implications for obtaining visas to travel overseas on business.

"He was terrified of losing his job," she said.

The court was told that the false allegations also had a major impact on his domestic life.

"Social services asked his other daughter not to leave him alone with his grandchildren,"Ms Cottee told the hearing: "This is not the first time that the defendant has made allegations of rape."

The court was told that she had told police that she had been the victim of stranger rape and while staying in a hostel she also made an allegation of sexual abuse.

'Impulsiveness'

The court heard that she had previous convictions for shoplifting and being drunk and disorderly.

Ms Cottee said that 33 police officers had been involved in the investigation and 76 hours of police time wasted. In addition, costs of more than £2000 had been run up.

David Barnes, defending, said psychiatric reports showed that his client had signs of an anti-social personality disorder.

"Such a condition is characterised by impulsiveness and outbursts of anger," he said.

Mr Barnes said: "It does not provide any form of excuse but it does provide some sort of explanation for this matter".

He said that her father had reconciled himself with the defendant and was sitting in court to support her."The last thing he wants is to see his daughter sent to prison," he added.

He urged the judge to pass a suspended prison sentence so that the defendant could continue to receive specialist treatment.

But Judge Stewart said the offence was far too serious for anything but an immediate custodial sentence.

"Offences of this nature undermine public confidence in true allegations of rape.", he said.

"This had a degrading effect on your father."

"Although the allegations were shown to be untrue it may well impact on other people's thinking,"

The judge said that one of the psychiatric reports suggested that the remorse shown by the defendant appeared to be "superficial".

Sunday, March 27, 2011

"A sexual assault on the Texas A&M University-Commerce campus earlier this month has local law enforcement raising safety awareness.

"The incident, which occurred on March 1 around 10:30 p.m. at the West Halls, resulted in a campus-wide e-mail from the University Police Department encouraging students to take precautions when traveling through campus at night."

The story went on about how scary the attack was, and so on and so forth.

Well, it turns out it was just another false college rape claim. The same student newspaper reported:

"The Texas A&M University-Commerce University Police Department has released a statement concerning the recently reported sexual assualt on campus.

"'After a comprehensive and thorough investigation into the sexual assault reported on March 8, the University Police Department has determined that the report was false and the described assault did not occur,' the statement read. 'While all reports are taken seriously, the university community is urged to remember that false reports carry a penalty under Texas State Law.'"

"The false report, which stated that a sexual assault incident occurred on March 1st at the West Halls, wasn't filed until a week later. UPD continues to urge A&M-Commerce students to remain cautious.

"'Just because we don't have a serial rapist floating around on campus, you shouldn't just drop your guard,' UPD Crime Information Officer Jason Bone said. 'You should use those safety precautions all the time, regardless of the situation.'"

Friday, March 25, 2011

The Times-News on-line out of Tennessee reports that Brittany Cheyenne Thompson, 18, 418 Elm Springs Road, Church Hill, was arrested earlier this week after she allegedly called her ex-boyfriend and lied to him, stating she’d been kidnapped by three males. She allegedly told him that two of the men raped her while the third put a gun to her head and threatened to kill her. Thompson also allegedly told her ex, whose name is Chris Wagel, that she wasn’t sure where she was, but she was being held in a field in Surgoinsville.

Mr. Wagel then did exactly what any reasonable person would do: he called the Hawkins County Sheriff’s Office, which deployed seven officers to search for Thompson. The Church Hill Police Department also became involved in the investigation.

What happened next is both comic and tragic. “At approximately 1:30 a.m. Monday Ms. Thompson called Chris Wagel again and was cursing him, wanting to know why he called law enforcement,” Detective Jeff Greer stated in his report. “She also admitted to him that she made the story up. This conversation was also heard by Deputy Brad Depew.”

Get that? She cursed him -- for what? Believing her?!

Detective Greer then called Thompson, and Thompson allegedly told Greer she was fine. Then she told the detective she hadn’t spoken to Wagel for a couple of days. Thompson agreed to meet Greer to prove she was OK, and during that meeting she again denied speaking to Wagel that night. At that point she was arrested and charged with filing a false report. Thompson is scheduled for arraignment in Hawkins County Sessions Court on April 13. Link: http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9030789

I am assuming that the false report charge stems from the boyfriend's call to police, not the lies the woman told to detective Greer directly. Assuming I am correct, should a woman be charged with filing a false report even though she's not the one who actually called the police?

It is only appropriate that her lie be deemed a crime. Assuming that the newspaper account is correct, when the woman lied to her boyfriend, she intended him to take it seriously, and the only reasonable response on his part was to call the police.

It is well to note that too many young men whose girlfriends told them they'd been raped have attempted to take the law in their own hands to avenge what turned out to be a false rape claim. These efforts typically have tragic consequences for both the avenging young men and the males falsely accused. Usually, the male falsely accused is badly beaten or even killed and the avenging young man is charged with a serious crime. The woman typically is not charged -- and we've always assumed that it's because she reported the lie to her friend, not the police.

The decision to charge the woman in this case is a welcome change. The cry of "rape" should be sacrosanct, whether it is made directly to police or to another person whose only reasonable response is to call the police.

According to the Asheville, NC Daily Planet, at a women's conference in that city two years ago, feminist Jane Fonda gave a talk about the necessity of female leadership. The article reports her as saying, “I’ve traveled the world — and I am optimistic. I think what we’re seeing is the last flailings” of the patriarchal, war-prone leadership style.Izzat right?

I've heard that before. It has been a recurring theme in the feminist babbling I've encountered over the years -- that women are as capable as men at leadership and nearly anything else. There are odd and contradictory reasons offered to explain it, though.

Sometimes, the reason given is that there are virtually no differences between men and women. Women simply haven't held leadership positions in the past because men, the meanies, wouldn't let them.

Then, we have the claim that women would be better leaders because they're -- ready? -- natural nurturers, implying that men are natural meanies because they don't possess this trait.

The scientific description for this contradiction is "attempting to have your cake and eat it, too." In other words, men and women are basically the same, but if there are differences, exclusively female characteristics are good and exclusively male characteristics are bad.

I remember watching on TV some lady Congressman making the natural nurturers claim from the floor of the House of Representatives a number of years ago. Unfortunately, I can't substantiate which lady Congressman -- Barbara Boxer? Patsy Schroeder? Somebody else? -- or her exact words. I was too distracted by the contradictory nature of the claim to file that information in my memory banks.

But if natural nurturing makes women better leaders, wouldn't that fall under the category of biology equaling destiny, which feminist have railed against for decades?

The lady Congressman is not the only one who's made such a claim. Remember Sally Field's proclamation on the occasion of the Emmy Awards, that if mothers ruled the world, there'd be no more wars?

Really?

As if fathers don't care whether their sons (and daughters) are lost in wars....

Anyway, now comes a tidbit of info from Justin Riamondo of Antiwar.com and other sources that three of the most powerful people behind the President's decision to attack Libya with missiles are ... women. Specifically, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power, National Security Council director of “multilateral affairs”and UN ambassador Susan Rice. Raimondo dubs them the three Vengeful Valkyries of the State Department.

Regardless of your politics, you must surely see the inconsistency here. Whether you agree with the decision to intervene in Libya or not isn't the point. The point is that violence and vengence are not the exclusive domain of the male gender, just as nurturing isn't exclusively female. Domestic violence statistics prove the former; the heartbreak of countless divorced dads longing for the children taken from them prove the latter.

I mean, really. What's more nurturing than a BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile?

It's time for feminists to show some consistency. It's time for Sally Field, Jane Fonda and countless other feminists who've made similar claims to ... man up, admit they were wrong and apologize to the multitudes of men they insulted.

According to the Asheville, NC Daily Planet, at a women's conference in that city two years ago, feminist Jane Fonda gave a talk about the necessity of female leadership. The article reports her as saying, “I’ve traveled the world — and I am optimistic. I think what we’re seeing is the last flailings” of the patriarchal, war-prone leadership style.

A 21-year-old woman has been charged with public mischief for falsely claiming she had been the victim of an attempted sexual assault in the town of The Pas, RCMP say.Kylie Ann Beaton is scheduled to appear in court April 4 after allegedly admitting to RCMP she lied Feb. 20 when reporting the attack, which she had claimed occurred as she walked home, police said.

Mounties said the woman eventually admitted to lying when investigators questioned her about inconsistencies in her account of the attack.

Before that, police said, they issued a detailed description and sketch of a suspect — one whom they ultimately found doesn't exist.

The description led to several anonymous tips from the public in the area.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

We received a note from a reader asking our opinion about the matter referenced in the title of this post. We've opined on this matter previously, but it is well to revisit it.

It is my belief that it is critical to prosecute false rape claims. The fact that questions such as this are even raised only underscores that our justice system has serious systemic problems that will only be exacerbated by granting rape liars de facto immunity for their crimes.

Relying on rape recantations to spare men and boys from incarceration for false rape claims is a snare and a delusion. It is, in fact, likely that adopting a policy of not punishing rape liars will have the effect of reducing recantations. Why is that?

A rape liar makes a false claim to fulfill a personal need -- often to give her a handy excuse, to exact revenge, or to gain attention. The rape liar is unlikely to drop the lie unless she believes that doing so will fulfill an even greater, more pressing, personal need than the one that prompted the lie in the first place. Most rape lies are recanted due to the belief that the lie is likely to be exposed and that the liar will be punished more severely if she refuses to admit it.

In point of fact, rape recantations typically occur only after police have found a hole, often a gaping hole, in the accuser's story and there is little likelihood that the case will go to trial anyway, much less result in a conviction. Police officers apprise the accuser that they've found a video, a witness, or some other evidence, and that her story doesn't add up. That is often enough to get her to recant. But the reason many, if not most, recant is due to the fear that their punishment will be more severe if they don't. If the fear of punishment were removed, it is unlikely that many would recant.

More fundamentally, for every other criminal act, our criminal justice system values the concept of deterrence. Would-be false accusers will not be deterred unless they know they face serious consequences. Without this deterrence, what is to stop many more women and girls from manufacturing rape lies?

Even posing the question about whether false accusers should be punished is troubling. It acknowledges that our current system is deeply flawed because it allows wrongful arrests and even convictions following false rape claims in numbers too significant to ignore.

Instead of advocating to grant women and girls carte blanche to lie about rape, wouldn't our time be better spent advocating to fix the underlying problem? Specifically, the problem is that we permit the presumptively innocent, who too often turn out to have been falsely accused, to be arrested and jailed on uncorroborated, even far-fetched claims, and often before an investigation has been conducted, much less concluded.

An innocent man or boy should not need to depend on a false accuser's whim to decide whether she will, in her sole and unilateral discretion, free him from his false rape hell by recanting. For what other crime would we even suggest with a straight face that the perpetrator should be given the right to decide, without fear of punishment, whether his victim continues to suffer for the harm he caused? In the case of a false rape claim, the rape accuser has proven herself untrustworthy by telling the lie in the first place. She is the last person whose goodwill the falsely accused should be forced to depend on. And, as noted above, without the threat of even greater punishment for not recanting, most rape liars likely would not recant.

False accusers need to know beforethey lie that the punishment for a false rape claim will be severe. The problem today is not that we are discouraging recantations by prosecuting false accusers. The problem today is that we are tacitly encouraging false rape claims bynot prosecuting enough false accusers, and by sentencing the ones we do prosecute too leniently.

At FRS, we advocate a sliding scale: for early recantations, before a male has been arrested, the false accuser should be treated more leniently. Recantations should be rewarded, but they should never be a "get out of jail free" card. The longer the lie is permitted to go unrecanted, the greater the punishment needs to be.

Far too many falsely accused men and boys have sat in prison cells and suffered the atrocities of incarceration waiting in vain for a recantation that never was uttered. It's time we stop depending on the goodwill of rape liars by hoping that they will show mercy to the innocent men and boys whose lives they've already destroyed.

Finally, consider this. A 16-year-old boy named Maoloud Baby once was convicted of raping an 18-year-old woman in the back of her car. The woman testified that she told Maoloud he could have sex with her if he stopped when she told him to, but she claimed that when she yelled for him to stop, he continued for five to 10 seconds. He did not ejaculate but withdrew. He and his the woman drove to a McDonalds, they hugged, she gave him her phone number, and he left. Maoloud was convicted of first degree rape and other offenses for delaying withdrawal for as little as five seconds, by the woman's own admission.

If we are willing to incarcerate a teenage boy for a five second delay, doesn't a woman deserve some punishment if she allows a man or boy to rot in a prison cell for a day -- a week -- a month -- a year -- or many years -- because she cared so little about his life that she had him arrested over a lie? The question scarcely survives its statement.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Currently, rape law adheres to a contract law standard of consent, where consent may manifested in any way that it actually occurs. In matters of romance, people typically toss formalities to the winds and generally express consent in body language, smiles, nods, caresses, and in a thousand other ways that wouldn't be appropriate in a commercial setting. There are, in fact, an infinite variety of ways people signal consent. Many, perhaps most, couples establish routines where unspoken conduct cues responses in a willing a partner.

A law that recognizes that consent may be evidenced in whatever ways parties actually manifest it can’t possibly be unfair, right?

Well, wrong. Criminal law professor and feminist Michele Alexandre wants to junk all of that and severely limit the way consent may be legally manifested. She insists that the contract theory of consent treats women’s bodies as goods and proposes to change criminal law so that all the non-verbal manifestations of assent are invalid to show legal consent. Specifically, “express consent entails verbal or written assent that leaves no doubt as to the victim’s agreement to the sexual interaction. . . .” (The other-worldly reference to "written assent" is a dead giveaway that this professor is operating in a different universe than the typical bedroom where real couples are getting it on.)

She would make the sex act a presumed crime whenever a woman cries rape. The burden would be on the defendant to prove “that express and present consent was explicitly obtained at the time of the actual sexual interaction, not before or after . . . .” Only if the defendant is able to establish “express, present, and uncontroverted consent to the sexual interaction at issue” does the burden shift to the prosecution to prove withdrawal of consent, and “withdrawal of consent can happen at any time during the sexual interaction.” (The latter point about withdrawal is not objectionable under the contract law theory of consent.)

In this professor’s world, past sexual behavior – those routines a couple has established over the course of months or years, that private and unspoken language they've developed – none of it may be cited as evidence of present consent. Sex that occurs as a result of such flawed consent is rape.

See M. Alexandre, ‘Girls Gone Wild’ and Rape Law: Revising the Contractual Concept of Consent & Ensuring an Unbiased Application of ‘Reasonable Doubt’ When the Victim is Non-Traditional, 17 American Univ. Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law 1, 41, 55-56 (2009).

Presumably, the jury would have to be instructed that even if they find there was consent -- a real, honest-to-goodness agreement to have sex -- if such consent wasn't manifested in the "correct," narrowly prescribed manner outlined here, then there was no legal consent. It was rape.

If the goal is to establish certainty about whether the woman consents to the sex act, there already exists a sure-fire way to insure that the male understands whether she consents: she can say "no." Uttering "no" means there is no consent. Before or during the act -- "no" means "proceed no further." Yet, for unfathomable reasons, in the past few years there's been a movement to insist that uttering that two-letter word puts too much burden on the woman.

So what good would this law accomplish? None. The proposed new law would force innocent men and boys to testify at trial, contrary to the Sixth Amendment's prohibition, because the sex act would be a presumed crime if a woman cried rape; the only way to rebut that presumption would be for the man or boy to testify.

Real rapists would do what they've always done: lie. Only now, they'd claim consent was obtained in the new, narrowly prescribed way even though it wasn't.

Women in divorce and custody battles would have a powerful new weapon in their arsenals to hold over their ex-husbands' heads.

Troubled college girls would have even more power to get attention or revenge.

Men and boys would be punished by ex-mates they've pissed off by having rape claims lodged against them because, even though there was actual consent, the guys failed to obtain consent in the new, correct manner.

And most couples in a healthy relationship would ignore the new law altogether. But if the couple ignored the new law, only the male would do so at his peril.

Once again, we see the person who has confessed to filing a false accusation, referred throughout the article, as the "victim". Ummm....if nothing but consensual sex occurred, how exactly is she a "victim"? CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - A teen girl high school student who claimed she was raped in a bathroom at West Mecklenburg High School actually filed a false report, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg police.

According to the original police report, the incident happened on Feb. 10 between a 15-minute span starting at 11:24 a.m.

The victim originally told police there were two suspects involved in the incident – one held the 17-year-old girl down and pulled down her pants, while the other performed the sexual act, according to the police report.

"The victim stated she had to scream to get the suspects to leave her alone and they ran out of the bathroom," according to the original police report.

The victim then left the bathroom and told a nearby person about the incident, according to the first report.

The girl told police she suffered cuts and bruises during the incident.

On Monday, a CMPD spokesman said the the victim later claimed she had consensual sex with the suspect.It's unclear if she has been charged with filing a false report.

Once again, we see the person who has confessed to filing a false accusation, referred throughout the article, as the "victim". Ummm....if nothing but consensual sex occurred, how exactly is she a "victim"?

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The hanging trees from the Old South have been figuratively replanted in Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood.

On a steamy day in June of 2009, an innocent man named Michael Zenquis was beaten by an angry mob after he was wrongly accused of raping an 11-year-old girl. A female onlooker yelled, "Rapist!" He heard someone say he deserved to die while others shouted, "Kill him, kill him!" Michael was beaten with sticks and a baseball bat. Michael was stomped. Michael was bleeding, but he kept yelling, "I'm innocent, I didn't do anything." When the vicious attack finally ended, Michael had sustained injuries to his back, his eye, his shoulder, and his foot.

The police took Michael away but quickly discovered they had picked up the wrong guy. So what do you think they did? They dropped him right back in the neighborhood where the animals had beaten him. Getting out of Kensington alive became a terrifying ordeal for Michael.

In light of this despicable atrocity to an innocent man, what did the Mayor do? What did the police commissioner do?

I'll tell you what they did: nothing.

Worse. The next day, a different mob caught up with the actual rapist, named Jose Carrasquillo. What do you think happened? The mob gave him a brutal beating that lasted several minutes until the police got there.

So, did the mayor or the police condemn the vigilante justice?

Exactly the opposite. The police gave two of the men who helped "apprehend" Carrasquillo $5,750 each.

Further, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey announced he would not pursue criminal charges against the mob. Ramsey explained that the man's injuries were not life-threatening (the new test for assault in Philadelphia?), and, after all, emotions were running high. "From what I've seen so far," Ramsey smugly declared, "we have one victim and that's an 11-year-old girl.''

And the message this sends to people predisposed to vigilante justice is -- what, exactly?

I know, I know. It's pretty damn hard to feel sorry for a child rapist. But "feeling sorry" has nothing to do with it. As ACLU attorney Mary Catherine Roper said: "It's shocking that the police are not going to do anything in response to what is essentially mob violence against [Carrasquillo]. This went beyond apprehending the guy.''

You see, we have no choice but to condemn the savage beating of Carrasquillo. It is impossible to accept the vigilante justice in the Carrasquillo case and condemn it in the Michael Zenquis case.

We condemn all vigilante justice precisely because of the Michael Zenquises of this world.

Finally, word comes that Michael Zenquis is suing the city and the police. We applaud him for that, because it will put the entire ugly affair back in the spotlight. Zenquis' lawsuit claims that officers not only encouraged the "street justice" but that higher ups, including Mayor Nutter and Police Commissioner Ramsey, condoned it. The officers "specifically advised the civilians that they should use physical force against plaintiff," according to the complaint: "(T)he clear message from the officers [was] that they would be free to assault plaintiff with impunity."

Michael Zenquis has this silly notion that after he was beat up, police had a responsibility to warn the public not to take matters into their own hands. "Me being beat up like that, they should have done something about it, because I was on the ground, I was bleeding and I was hurt. I think the police should have done something about it cause they knew I was beat up," Zenquis said.

Why would the police try to stop the mobs, Michael? After all, your beating was just unfortunate collateral damage in a "more important" war.

As we often point out, those of us who closely follow the false rape phenomenon find unmistakable patterns of gendered reactions to rape claims. Based on a fair review of the reported cases, it is reasonable to assert that men, as befitting their status since the beginning of time as women’s protectors, typically express greater outrage over rape claims than do women. The mobs in the Carrasquillo and Michael Zenquis cases were entirely or almost entirely male. Claims that women were raped often elicit a visceral reaction of outrage in men exceeding the actual harm inflicted by the crimes.

That there is no "rape culture" is aptly illustrated by the fact that the vigilantes who beat up two presumptively innocent men in the cases referenced above are far more representative of "masculinity" in our culture than is the man who actually raped the little girl. That is not a ringing endorsement of masculinity.

Tossing political correctness aside, it is fair to remind our readers that Mayor Michael Nutter is black. The good mayor would do well to read up on America's long and painful history of overreacting to rape. Such overreaction has had a devastating impact on the black community. His honor should read about the Duluth lynchings and a hundred others.

You see a lot of things like this in the news, and my question is very simple: which is more representative of young masculinity: the silly, yes, buffoonish, young guys referenced here, or the young rapist?

The question scarcely survives its statement. If you asked this question of 100 people on the street, 99 would get it right.

The only folks who think rape is "normalized" among our young men are the nitwits who read and write hateful militant feminist blogs. Everyone else knows that's just bullshit. Men do not approve of rape. Men typically elicit a visceral outrage to even far-fetched claims of rape that often exceeds women's outrage (you don't see women beating accused rapists who turn out to be innocent with baseball bats). To suggest that efforts to reduce rape by urging women to be careful somehow foment rape is downright pathological. Every normal person agrees with all of this.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) - Authorities who accuse a Herndon woman of fabricating a report that she was raped at a Dauphin County shopping center said valuable police time was wasted on the investigation.Twenty-nine-year-old Amber Adams has admitted to investigators that she was not forced into a car and raped in the parking lot of the Paxton Square Shopping Center on Jan. 29, according to Lower Paxton Township police.

"We had people that just scoured video trying to find the perpetrator's vehicle, hours and hours and hours and hours were spent, not only by us, but by civilians out at the shopping center," Lt. Gary Seefeldt said.

Seefeldt said the report also scared many shoppers and store employees.

"Everybody around there was concerned there was a rapist running around," he said. "They're supposed to be concerned. We got all kinds of phone calls from all sorts of people out there, what should their employees do."

Workers at Med Plus Uniforms and Scrubs said some customers made special plans to shop only during the day.

"Some people would have their keys out before they left. Some people wouldn't come in to shop or pick up things because of it being dark and not being sure what could be lurking in the parking lot," Heather Criste said.

Police said Adams will be sent a summons charging her with making a false report to law enforcement. They did not say why she fabricated the report.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) - Authorities who accuse a Herndon woman of fabricating a report that she was raped at a Dauphin County shopping center said valuable police time was wasted on the investigation.

Monday, March 21, 2011

A few years ago, I wrote an article in the University of Maryland campus newspaper about the Men’s Anti-Violence Campaign, a group that tried to reduce rape on campus with seminars, full-page newspaper ads, and big posters telling men that rape is bad and that they should stop doing it. My point was that besides being ridiculously offensive to men, it was, much more importantly, a massive waste of money that would not prevent rape but, rather, make most students -- male and female -- take feminism and the anti-rape movement even less seriously than they already do.

One of the responses my article prompted took the form of a lengthy diatribe by radical feminist blogger Kyle Payne. He argued, in accordance with radical feminist dogma, that the only way to prevent rape is to try "to repair the damage of a corrupt system (gender)" by focusing efforts "where rape begins, in men’s decisions to assert dominance over women through sexuality."

I won't refute Mr. Payne's argument here because I don't see any room for reasoned debate between us. Frankly, it would be pointless to argue argue with Mr. Payne's points because they stem not from a difference of opinion drawn from a series of facts, but from articles of faith that are utterly incompatible with my own worldview (and, I dare say, the worldviews of most people).

To explain: the definition of radical feminism is a little hazy, but the gist of what they believe is that the most basic form of evil is the oppression of woman by man: that every evil in the universe, from the Holocaust to slavery to high prices at the gas pump, is directly rooted in patriarchal oppression. They believe that the driving force behind the everyday patriarchies that feminists in general oppose is a vast capital-lettered masculine conspiracy, "The Patriarchy," a mechanism by which all men consciously oppress all women. The mission of radical feminism is to solve all of the problems of the world by changing the root dynamic of male-female interaction.

I could not make this up: radical feminists believe that they can solve the problems of the world, which are caused by a magic penis conspiracy, by getting men to be less manly. Again, there is no way I can refute these beliefs because they stem from inalienable pillars of radical feminist thought.

That said, what I will do is point out that, while I was doing research for this follow-up, I discovered that Mr. Payne had written his screed after being arrested and charged for a sexual assault on a Buena Vista University student while he was working as an RA.

Even assuming that the date on the post is inaccurate and that he posted it immediately after the original article was published, even assuming that this sexual assault was his one and only deviance from strict adherence to radical male feminist behavior, that means that he had spent an entire year before I had written my article being a bona fide unrepentant sexual predator and he still had the gall to accuse me of being part of "the problem."

Galling though it was, it wasn't remarkable. What was remarkable was how Mr. Payne justified his criminal actions using the buzzwords of radical feminism in his eventual apology (after his plea agreement, before his sentencing): “it seems likely that I neglected to fully investigate and confront the influence of patriarchal conditioning on my own sexuality.” To summarize that blog post, Kyle offers as an explanation of his predatory behavior a childhood history of sexual abuse (for which, if true, my heart goes out to him even though it doesn't excuse what he did) and a resulting variety of deep-seated psychological issues, the whole of which he blames on masculinity.

This is a reasonable position if you believe, like feminist scholar Mary Koss, that “rape represents an extreme behavior but one that is on a continuum with normal male behavior." For those of us who don't, the reasoning is fundamentally unhinged at best and skin-crawlingly disturbing at worst. By their logic, it's entirely defensible to characterize Kyle Payne's molestation of an unconscious co-ed as par for the course in the milieu of average, red-blooded male conduct.

Try as I might, I could no more separate radical feminists from their beliefs than I could separate the stars from the sky. What I do, however, is comfortably speak for my sex when I say that rapists aren't rapists because they're men, but because they're monsters. The root of male-female sexual violence isn't a mystical Marxian class struggle, but the the imbalance of social, psychological and physical power between men and women.

Blaming males for the shadows of the night and wallowing in caustic misandry may make radical feminists feel better about themselves, but I'll eat my eyeballs if it can be proven that they protect a single woman from assault when they use trumped-up statistics to tell psychopaths that the police never believe rape victims and that they'll escape justice 95% of the time but that they should stop doing it because oh gee-golly-willickers it's so gosh-darn mean. Passive resistance may work in a lot of civil rights struggles, but it won't work against those naturally incapable of empathy.

If they really want to prevent rape, they should work to give women the the confidence to walk away from an uncomfortable or dangerous social situation, the know-how to detect and escape an abusive relationship as it forms and, when all else fails, a handgun and the training to use it responsibly. Claiming that rape is an inextricable facet of male identity gives nothing but succor to the wolves that stalk the dorms in sheep's clothing. I empathize with radical feminists' zeal to fight them, but it's counterproductive in the extreme to allow predators like Kyle Payne to abdicate responsibility for sexual assault by saying “I blame the Patriarchy.”

Another high profile false rape claim has been exposed. This case is significant because the lie was told to cover up a murder, and it scared the beejebers out of everyone in a posh D.C. suburb for a week before the untruth was uncovered.

Brittany Norwood, 27, had claimed she was the survivor of a vicious sexual attack at the upscale yoga attire store Lululemon Athletica where she worked in well-to-do Bethesda, Maryland on March 11. The supposed attack left Norwood's colleague Jayna Murray, 30, dead. The victim-turned-suspect was found inside the store, bound and bruised, and she convinced detectives that two men in ski masks and gloves raped and beat her and her fellow employee.

The "survivor's" story terrified residents and merchants in normally safe Bethesda. It happened in an area of restaurants and high-end stores that has long been considered one of the least dangerous spots in the region. Stores went into hysterical mode, installing security cameras and enlisting private security guards to escort workers to their cars. Average citizens began asking clothing stores if they’d sold ski masks to anyone suspicious. A reward of more than $150,000 was offered to catch the supposed intruders.

And business for the local merchants was down. Way, way down. One local restaurant manager said business was down 50 percent during the week hysteria gripped the area. Foot traffic along the road was light, and many businesses closed early because employees were nervous, he said. “People have been very, very apprehensive. Very, very nervous.”

How does this fear square with the sexual grievance industry's mantra that people don't believe rape claims? This case is nothing more than a high profile manifestation that people generally automatically believe rape claims.

Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger and Assistant Chief Drew Tracy both said that detectives investigating the case had little choice but to believe Norwood’s story at first.

Read the next quote and try to wrap your head around it: “Victims of sexual assault, you have to take their story as truthful,” the chief said.

Given that a rape/murder under these circumstances is more than just exceedingly rare, and that women frequently lie about rape, that statement from a trained police officer is peculiar, to put it charitably.

The chief continued: “Four days ago I really believed this was a random crime of opportunity,” the chief said. “It’s a tragic case.”

And, of course, police officials began describing the case to reporters based largely on the alleged survivor's statements. And the news media obligingly ran with the story, treating the "survivor's" account as fact. The venerable Washington Post, for one, reported the story as if a rapist/murderer was certainly on the loose. The illustrious paper became little more than a parrot for police, who were little more than parrots for the "survivor."

Here's how the Washington Post's story on the alleged incident starts off -- and keep in mind that it too four -- FOUR -- reporters and a staff researcher to get this wrong: "Two men wearing masks and gloves entered an upscale yoga clothing store in downtown Bethesda after closing hours this weekend, killed a worker and sexually assaulted another, officials said Saturday. Detectives think the attack began as a robbery about 10 p.m. Friday along the high-end Bethesda Row shopping district."

The story also noted: "Detectives think that the men - dressed all in black with faces and hands covered - entered a short time later, police said. Because the intruders were covered, police have come up with only limited descriptions, with one being 6 feet tall and the other a little over 5-foot-3, police said."

But once police got around to actually investigating Norwood’s story instead of just acting as the purported survivor's stenographers, they found holes, big holes. Only two sets of footprints, one belonging to Norwood and the other matched to a pair of shoes kept in the store, were found at the crime scene, Manger said. Unspecified evidence was also found in Murray’s car, which raised questions, he said. The rape story made no sense, either, he said.

“(There is) no evidence to support that either was sexually assaulted,” the chief admitted.

If there was "no" evidence for a sexual assault, why did the Washington Post report that officials said a sexual assault occurred? And why did the chief of police say "I really believed" the alleged crime had occurred?

Worst of all, at one point in the past week, Chief Manger said officers were doing surveillance on a “suspect” who fit the story they’d been told. They trailed an innocent man they thought might be a “person of interest.”

What might have happened to that man if the lie had not been exposed? And how would any of us feel if we learned that the police were following us around in the past week?

It is astounding how frequently high profile rape claims turn out to be lies. While we are aware of no definitive studies on the prevalence, the percentage would be staggering.

And that only underscores the absurdity of the chief's statement “victims of sexual assault, you have to take their story as truthful.” Respectfully, Chief, your job is not to automatically believe alleged victims of sexual assault. Your job is to treat the account of an alleged victim of sexual assault as an assertion to be fairly and objectively investigated. Why is this too much to ask?

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Jesse Cheng, a UC Irvine senior and the student representative on the University of California Board of Regents, was arrested last November after his ex-girlfriend filed a sexual assault complaint with police against him. The Orange County District Attorney's Office declined to file sexual battery charges against Cheng, citing a lack of evidence.

But the UC Irvine Office of Student Conduct has ruled that Cheng engaged in "unwanted touching" of his ex-girlfriend, an offense that's classified as sexual battery. Cheng is deciding whether to appeal the ruling.

Feminist groups want Cheng, who gets free tuition for serving on the board, off the board now.

Cheng insists he is innocent and refuses to resign from the board. But Cheng does not see what happened to him as part of a larger injustice. Just read the statements he's made in his defense: "I have been a champion for gender equality issues and gender violence issues my entire college career, and I would never do anything to compromise those values,” he said. “Neither do I want to say that privileges of men don’t exist anymore or that violence against women doesn’t happen, it just didn’t happen in this case.”

And: “I recognize the privileges that I have as a man, and I recognize that gender violence and violence against women is a serious issue,” Cheng said. “But I’m innocent. I’ve been working on those issues my entire college career. I would never engage in behavior that would compromise those values.”

It is a bizarre case, but False Rape Society will not support the accused here.

Cheng said he ended the relationship with his partner last September. Thereafter, they had three more physically intimate encounters. It was after the second encounter that his former partner accused him of sexual assault, he said.

Here's where it really gets strange. Cheng admits that before he was arrested, he wrote three emails to the woman, known only as "Laya," admitting the sexual assault. In the e-mails, Cheng apologized and acknowledged the crime. “I’m sorry for sexually assaulting you,” he wrote in an e-mail dated Oct. 19. “I am a horrible person for what I did for [sic] you, I tried to rape you, and I thank you everyday for not letting me do that to you.”

Although Cheng admits he wrote the e-mails, he claims he did it because Laya had asked him to. "She was calling me 50 times a day for two hours on the phone a day,” Cheng said. “To be honest, my life was cracking because of these phone calls. They were extremely disruptive and I was extremely stressed out. So I lied in the e-mails to do whatever I could to move forward with my life.” Cheng said she had explicitly stated what kind of language she wanted in the e-mails. He added, however, that the e-mails were not truthful.

FRS has no idea if Mr. Cheng engaged in "unwanted touching." He was not charged with a crime, much less convicted of one. And let us state the obvious, politically incorrect though it may be: the fact that Cheng and his ex-girlfriend engaged in a consensual tryst subsequent to the one where the alleged assault occurred, and that she only later reported the alleged assault, casts doubt on it. At the very least, even if "unwanted touching" occurred, the facts suggest that Cheng's ex-girlfriend didn't think it was an especially serious matter.

But the Office of Student Conduct has ruled that Cheng engaged in "unwanted touching." Even if he didn't, one must seriously wonder if Cheng is either too stupid, or too unstable, to serve as the student regent in light of the admissions he wrote in emails.

Some who are concerned about injustices to falsely accused men will construe Cheng's current predicament as a form of karma. After all, when you join with the gender-divisive purveyors of lock-the-doors-hide-the-daughters Chicken Little rape hysteria, you risk having the monster you helped create turn on you. It is ironic that Cheng himself helped manufacture the very culture that led feminists to stage yet another gender passion play this week, this time, when they protested against him. It is doubly ironic that no matter what happens to Jesse Cheng, he will not acknowledge that the system is broken, and that it allows innocent men to be found responsible of terrible wrongdoing in college kangaroo proceedings that make us long for the good old days of Star Chamber. Jesse Cheng will not help us to change the system; he is only out to save Jesse Cheng.

Jesse Cheng is the author of his own discontent. False Rape Society calls on the Board of Regents to oust him from the board immediately.